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77th Annual Meeting of the German Society of Oto-Rhino-Laryngology, Head and Neck Surgery

German Society of Oto-Rhino-Laryngology, Head and Neck Surgery

24.05. - 28.05.2006, Mannheim

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Surgical Therapy of Functional Nasal Valve Stenoses by means of the Breathe® Implant according to áWengen

Die operative Therapie von funktionellen Nasenklappenstenosen mit Breathe®-Implantaten nach áWengen

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  • corresponding author presenting/speaker Susanne Amm - ENT-Department Martin-Luther-University, Halle, Germany
  • author Marc Bloching - ENT-Department Martin-Luther-University, Halle, Germany

German Society of Otorhinolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery. 77th Annual Meeting of the German Society of Otorhinolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery. Mannheim, 24.-28.05.2006. Düsseldorf, Köln: German Medical Science; 2006. Doc06hno089

The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at: http://www.egms.de/en/meetings/hno2006/06hno089.shtml

Published: September 7, 2006

© 2006 Amm et al.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/deed.en). You are free: to Share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work, provided the original author and source are credited.

Outline

Text

Introduction: Causes for a nasal obstruction are in many cases, beside septum deviation or hyperplastic turbinates, instabilities of the nasal valves, in the meaning of a weakness of the lateral cartilage. For treatment of that instability, several surgical techniques were established in the past, however, with often only poor functional results.

As an alternative method, we use the Breathe® Implant according to áWengen for stabilization of the nasal valve area. Its operative handling is easy. Because of availability of different sizes the implant is individually adaptable in the best possible way.

Methods: The titanium implant in form of a clasp is being implanted via an open rhinoplasty. During the past 18 months, we used the implant in 16 patients so far, with functional relevant nasal valve stenoses. For the check-up, we used a questionnaire for assessment of a discomfort score relating to nasal obstruction, nasal breathing-related sleep disorders, post-operative pain, foreign-body-feelings, and cosmetic satisfaction.

Results: Apart from one patient, all other patients experienced a considerable improvement of their discomforts. This one patient, after improvement in the first place, later suffered again from turbinate hypertrophy. All of the patients were completely satisfied with the cosmetic result. No major complications, like extrusion or infection of the implant, have occurred so far.

Conclusions: According to our experience, the Breathe® Implant according to áWengen is an effective and cosmetically unobtrusive method for the treatment of nasal valve stenoses.

Outline

References

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Stewart MG, Witsell DL, Smith TL, et al. Development an validation of the Nasal Obstruction Symptom Evaluation (NOSE) Scale. Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg. 2004;130:157-163
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Howard BK, Rohrich RJ. Understanding the nasal airway:principles and practice. Plast Reconstr Surg. 2002;109(3):1128-1146
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Rhee JS, Poetker DM, Smith TL, et al. Nasal valve surgery improves disease-specific quality of life. Laryngoscope. 2005;115(3):437-440